Melbourne City announce plans to trial ‘marking’ for the 2015/2016 season

Melbourne City coach John Van’t Schip has revealed his side will be trialing the unorthodox football strategy of ‘marking’ in the 2015/16 Hyundai A-League season.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Van’t Schip described “We simply conceded too many cheap goals this season and we feel its time that we try something different defensively.”

The Melbourne City coach said that the side’s loss in last weekend’s Melbourne Derby semi-final consolidated their decision to trial ‘marking’ in the upcoming preseason, with a view to integrating it into their 2015/16 strategy.

“When reviewing the tapes, it became clear that our original plan of leaving Melbourne Victory’s attacking players completely free in the box simply did not work.”

“We knew that in the past Melbourne Victory players have had a tendency to choke in front of goal during big games and our original plan was to give them the space to do so.”

Van’t Schip acknowledged that marking does not come without risks, saying “we understand that if we mark strikers, we run the risk of fouling them in the box”

However, the Melbourne City coach asserted that his side will be looking to account for these risks in the future by “also trialing ‘tackling’ in future seasons”.